Applied Materials - Energy Highway

VPS’ Superconducting Fault Current Limiter and the NYSEH
VPS’ Superconducting Fault Current Limiter (SCFCL) can mitigate
increased fault currents arising from additional generation and
upstate/downstate transmission throughput that could otherwise
increase local fault duties both within the New York City load center and
in other state power systems that would be accommodating increased
throughput within their service areas. Unmitigated increases in fault
duties beyond current local system and equipment ratings could
potentially lead to circuit breaker failures, flashovers, or physical bracing
failures, which then could potentially cause multiple faults or significant
loss of life to electrical power system components, as well as reliability
impacts due to overtripping and/or extended equipment replacement or
repair outages. In addition the restrictions on interconnection caused by
fault current limitations can have direct negative impacts on the
accomplishment of most of the intended objectives of NYSEH initiative.
The selective application of fault current limiters can provide not only
cost advantages through its relatively lower cost and losses for
selective application versus Series Reactor, FACTS and HVDC
alternatives, but can be more quickly designed and installed to respond
to unanticipated loop flows or impacts of other changes on the power
grid.
The project(s) would involve selective application of Varian Power Systems’
(VPS’) unique Superconducting Fault Current Limiter (SCFCL) design to
mitigate generation, transmission or distribution fault currents either in a
standalone project or in conjunction with any proposal accepted by the
NYSEH Task Force. Many of the proposals that will be submitted to the
NYSEH Task Force if implemented will exacerbate the existing fault current
problems which will undermine the goals or substantially increase the
required scope or cost of accepted proposals within the NYSEH initiative.
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
• Type of proposed project: Can be applied to generation, transmission
and/or distribution or combination thereof, as needed.
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